Something fundamental has changed in space. After decades of slow growth, the number of spacecraft launched annually has doubled every two years since 2015. And the trend shows no sign of slowing, with tens of thousands of planned spacecraft to be launched over the next few years. This exponential growth is reminiscent of Moore’s Law, the decades-long observation that the number of transistors on integrated circuits doubles every two years. The consequences of the continuation of Moore’s law and the ever-increasing computing power for lower costs over the past six decades has changed the course of our society, our economy, and our way of life. Could we be witnessing a similar revolution in space?
Gordon Moore wrote his seminal paper, from which Moore’s Law derives its name, when the exponential growth he observed was based on less than six years of data. Similarly, the trend line for this proposed Moore’s Law for Space has only been exponentially growing for just over eight years. In that same spirit, it is useful to consider what might happen if this trend continues.
First, it is necessary to point out that nearly all this recent growth in satellites are in Low Earth Orbit, which is generally defined as being below 2,000 km in altitude. These are not geostationary satellites. And the great majority of these satellites are commercial, not governmental. SpaceX has already deployed over 5,000 Starlink satellites, and has plans to deploy at least 7,000 more — possibly up to 42,000. China has just launched the first of its proposed 1,3000 satellite Guowang constellation. Amazon just launched the first of its Kuiper satellite constellation, which will have 3,236 satellites. The Chinese G60 constellation recently filed to launch 12,000 satellites. If these plans come to reality,…
Read the full article here